This post was published long before the Mists of Pandara Expansion.
The tips and techniques explained here may be outdated.

Sacred Shield: Fact vs Fiction

The Pally’s Sacred Shield is a squirrley little spell.

Each time the target takes damage they gain a Sacred Shield, absorbing 500 damage and increasing the paladin’s chance to critically hit with Flash of Light by 50% for up to 6 sec. They cannot gain this effect more than once every 6 sec. Lasts 30 sec. This spell cannot be on more than one target at any one time.

So.. you cast it on a target.. and then after the target is hit(melee or spells work) the first time it proc’s a shield on the target that will prevent some damage (500 + Casting pally’s sp * .75). While the shield is up you get an increase 50% crit on your Flash of Lights.

Yeah, easy for you to say.. but there’s still alot of muddy parts.
On yesterday’s post UncySpam commented:Hate to disapoint you, but Sacred Shield only procs on your own heals, so while it is handy if a tankadin shields himself when a healadin isn’t healing him, in any situation where a healadin is main healing that tankadin then the sacred shield should be being applied by the healadin – which will overwrite any other sacred shield on the target.

I wasn’t -exactly- sure what Uncy was referring to.. so I figured it was time for some experimentation. Luckily my fiancee has a pally tank and was willing to indulge me.

Experiment 1: Stacking Shields
Fiancee cast Sacred Shield (SS) on himself.
I cast SS on him. My SS overwrote his SS.
He cast SS on himself. His SS overwrote my SS.Conclusion: A single target can only have one Sacred Shield on it.

Experment 1.5: Multi-Shields
I cast SS on Fiancee.
I then cast SS on myself.
My SS on Fiancee went away.Conclusion: Each pally can have only one Sacred Shield up at a time.

Experiment 2: SS + Flash of Light HoT
Fiancee put SS on himself.
Fiancee then cast Flash of Light (FoL) on himself resulting in a 12 second HoT the same size as the original FoL.
I then cast FoL on him resulting in a 12 second HoT the same size as the original FoL.
My FoL HoT DID NOT overwrite his FoL HoT. He had two FoL HoTs on him at the same time.
I then cast FoL on him this resulted in a new FoL HoT on him that overwrote MY FoL HoT on him.Conclusion: A pally can use another pally’s SS to generate the FoL HoT but each target can only have one HoT from each pally.

The results here are muddy. Although my FoLs on him -would- crit they didn’t crit as frequently as I would have expected from 78.26% crit (my crit 28.36+50%).

We switched it around and I put SS on him and then he proc’d it and I saw crits more consistent with a 76% crit rate.

Tentative Conclusion: I believe this means that I can’t use another pally’s SS proc to increase my FoL crit chance.

Summary:
– One SS per pally, one SS per target.
– I can use any pally’s SS to get a HoT on someone.
– I should use any SS to stack HoTs if multiple HoTs on a target are a good thing.
– I can only get 50% more crit on my FoL when MY SS procs.
– Really.. I should be shielding the tank if I want to maximize the mitigation. Fiancee has 774 sp. I have 1968. So his SS will shield him for ~1080 points. My SS will shield him for ~1976. That’s ~1976 off of every hit over 6 seconds. … BUT that means I can’t use my SS elsewhere. Hmm Decision decisions.

6 comments to Sacred Shield: Fact vs Fiction

Great post, but one problem that I see: You say ‘That’s ~1976 off of every hit over 6 seconds. ‘ but that’s not the case. When the tank takes his first damaging hit, he’ll gain the shield. That shield will remain on him until either of the following happens:
1. the shield absorbs a total of 1976 damage, which could occur in one hit, or over multiple hits, or
2. the actual buff wears off (i.e., 30 seconds after you cast SS on him), or
3. you, or someone else overwrites SS.
If the shield absorbs the full 1976, the ‘bubble’ will fall off, and can’t reactivate for six seconds. The wording on the tooltip is a little funny, because you have the buff, Sacred Shield, that you’re casting; and then there’s the actual Shield that does the absorption.

I agree, by the way, this is a great ability, and if you go into the Divine Sacrifice build the buff will last for a minute. Any damage prevented is that much less for me to heal!

the SS bubble will last until:
1) Jeffo is correct a total of 1976 damage is absorbed in one or multiple hits
2) the six second timer runs out
You can re-apply your SS while the bubble is up with no effect on it, if your SS wears off while your bubble is still up due to a late proc the bubble will stay up until until condition 1 or 2 is met

The Divine Sacrifice talent not only increases the duration of your SS to 1 minute but it also increases the duration of your shield from 6 seconds to 12 without any effect on the icd of the bubble proc in addition to increasing the absorb amount to 600 + 90% SP which in your gear would be about 2371 per proc for an increase of 395

glad to see I added confusion, rather than clarity
and yes both of the above comments are good corrections to your post – only one lot of damage is mitigated, not multiples. The spell effectively works the same a Power Word:Shield, of course for a smaller ammount and via a different mechanic.

but the mititgation, and the little HoT it also gives is too good to not use. In most cases I find myself BoL, SS the FoL, then healing every other player but that tank until 30 seconds is up, then repeat

and just in case you are wondering the healing from the FoL HoT is not beaconed… so don’t think that casting the shield elsewhere to get the HoT up before changing the SS to the tank is worth it – IMHO its not.
.-= UncySpam´s last blog ..Huzzah! =-.

Good discussion. I commented on the previous post a bit late, and correct me of I wrong, but assuming 51/5/15, and a Pally tank that has gone into Divine Sacrifice to get the 20% mitigation bonus, why would you want to overwrite his SS?

Wanted to add a bit about my heal style to help illustrate how using a prot pallys SS helps.

On fights with a lot of damage to both tanks (toc) I beacon the mt, let him shield himself, put a fol hot on him, the SS the warrior OT and put up his fol hot, then heal as needed while refrehing SS and bots as necessary.

@GK “Fiancee has 774 sp. I have 1968.” the SP difference between a prot and a holy paladin means that even with the divine protection talent 774 SP is a 1296 procced shield. In a two tank fight 1296 is better than nothing but if there is only one then use the holy paladins SS